Word today is that 1,800 seats have been sold for Saturday night’s dinner and concert, along with another 2,400 concert-only admissions. Tickets were expensive — they started at $5,000 for a table of 10 and topped out at $200,000 — but the fabulous response should mean that the goal of raising $2.5 million in celebration of Denver Health’s 150th birthday is a done deal.

Plans for the black-tie happening are under the direction of Lisa and Bruce Alexander, Sharon Magness Blake and Ernie Blake and Jean and Dr. Ben Galloway. Garth Brooks, who recently ended his retirement from country music, is a personal friend of the Blakes.

The Child Life Zone is a 3,300-square-foot, state-of-the-art therapeutic and educational refuge for Denver Health’s pediatric patients and their families. It will serve as the centerpiece for Denver Health’s new Child Life discipline, and marks the hospital’s expansion into providing children with emotional support and effective coping through play, preparation, education and self-expression activities.

It is the seventh one that the two foundations have funded at U.S. hospitals; plans are underway for the first international Child Life Zone to open at Chaim Sheba Medical Center[4] in Tel Aviv, Israel.